The necessity of measurement and quality control of key parameters in industry is significantly
important. Therefore, techniques not requiring sample preparation are gaining market shares, since
they offer reduction in costs and decrease the amount of time needed for analysis. By the use of
rotational viscometers it is possible to control viscosity parameters relevant for optimised process
control reducing analysis time significantly, and furthermore ensuring the repeatability and
reproducibility of the results obtained.
This study has been proposed by a company, which manufactures adhesives. The aim of the
company was to improve their quality control processes for measuring viscosity. With that, the
company pretends to save time within the analyses, therefore save time in production processes,
triggering into a reduction of the cost of the global process. To this end was necessary to
acquire knowledge of adhesives; hence, different analyses have been done to know their chemical,
thermal and also mechanical and physical properties. In addition to it, for this thesis it has been
necessary to be able to quantify the rheological phenomena occurring in those complex flows that
take part in adhesives. So, knowledge on rheological behaviour was needed for setting the right
product analyses, such as temperature and flow rate.
The majority of the analyses have been done in the company that has proposed the thesis; and the
rest took place in Barcelona, in the Polytechnic University of Catalunya. Moreover, this study
includes a theoretical part where some aspects referred to adhesives are explained, supporting the
experimental work carried out.